The present invention relates to a cooking method and also to a cooking appliance. The invention is especially useful for frying various food articles, such as potatoes, chicken pieces, etc., and is therefore described below with respect to such an application. However, it will be appreciated that the invention could also be used in other applications, for example in steaming food articles such as vegetables.
Many types of frying appliances have been developed and are available. Generally, the known technique is to fry the food articles by immersing them in hot oil. This causes the food articles to become soaked in the oil, which not only detracts from the taste of the food articles but also may be injurious to the health of the consumer of the food article. Moreover, the known types of frying appliances generally require a relatively large quantity of oil, a relatively long cooking time to heat the large quantity of oil, and a relatively large quantity of energy for heating the oil. Further, the known appliances generally produce undesirable oil splash and unpleasant vapours, and are also difficult to clean.